This update appeared on Kickstarter, and on my personal blog — but now that I’m looking to get things on this site back on a regular schedule, I realized that it should be here as well.

I had promised myself that I wouldn’t be doing an update until I had a major delivery ready… that the incremental “I’m still working” updates didn’t tell anybody anything new – and wouldn’t convince folks who don’t believe that’s the case. So, doing them seemed like a waste of time. Plus, being completely honest, dealing with the minority of hyper-critical voices had led me to view those updates with growing anxiety. I wrestle with depression & anxiety quite a bit – so I made the choice to avoid a source of it.

However, a twitter discussion with a backer has convinced me otherwise – you folks deserve to know what’s going on. So here we are. I’ll just cut to the chase:

What’s been going on?

I’ve been completely redesigning FAR WEST, from top to bottom.

…

I’m sure that a lot of you are now utterly convinced that I’m crazy. Maybe so.

Allow me to explain.

…

Last summer, a friend of mine died. An industry colleague, a guy I’d known for decades, who I’d first met when I was living in Atlanta in the late 80s. More pursuant to this update, however – he was one of the folks who’d stepped up to help me get FAR WEST completed.

He died suddenly – no indication of ill health. There one minute, then gone.

My first reaction, to my shame, was to worry about what this meant for FAR WEST.

Yeah. I felt pretty awful for thinking like that. Still do.

But then, I found myself dwelling on the fact that he was gone so suddenly, with so many plans left unfulfilled. Not just his helping me – he had a bunch of things he was doing, which now would never be done. He was just gone. You know that I’ve had my own brushes with mortality – most recently in 2014. I kept thinking about that. I went into a pretty major depression.

One of the things that I realized during this period was that I wasn’t happy with FAR WEST. I kept coming back to the idea that it was so late, that the delays had been so long… and I asked myself: When you finally release it, will you be proud of it? Will you feel that it was worth the time that it took?

The answer was no.

I tried to avoid looking at that answer. At this point in the process, I couldn’t face that answer, really. If the answer really was “no, I’m not proud of it – I don’t actually like what I’ve got here” – then what the hell was the next step? I felt as though I was committed, at this point.

I had long talks about this with my wife, Laura, and my partner at Adamant Entertainment, Eric Trautmann, and both of them ended up saying variations of the same thing (paraphrasing here): “It’s already late. Make it something you ARE proud of.”

So I decided to do just that.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I love the setting. A testament to how much I love the world we’ve created here is that I still get excited about it, even after all the anxiety & negative shit that has floated around the delays, etc.

I even love some of the rules design I’ve come up with. But overall, I wasn’t happy with the system. It wasn’t feeling right in play. And I couldn’t get it to where I was satisfied. When I did come up with something that felt right, it would inevitably break some other part of the system. Frustration mounted.

Talking with Eric, he cut through the chaos (he’s really good at that) by asking me “well, what game had more of the feel you’re trying to hit?” And I said the old Star Wars game from West End. (And I wasn’t just stroking Eric’s ego there – he was the Creative Director for Star Wars at West End back in the day – but we’d been talking about the system in discussions on a different project, so it was a common frame of reference.)

Which led to a three-word solution:

Well, why not?

The original system of Star Wars, West End’s D6, is also available as Open Content, a framework in which I was already working. I know how the underlying math works, so I was able to take the rules elements that I was really happy with from the existing FAR WEST design, and port them over for use with D6. And the game plays faster and more cinematically – which is EXACTLY what I was hoping for.

So that’s what’s been happening, since around September of last year. And all of a sudden, I was happy with what I was producing. So that part has worked!

Anyway – this is getting long. I should probably switch to a simple Q&A summary:

When are we going to see this?
The backers are already seeing completed manuscript chapters, as they’re coming out of editing and going to Eric for layout. Yes, you read that right – I’m not insisting on doing everything myself. The layout will be largely the same as the existing one (I like the look of it), but I’m handing it off to an actual graphic design professional, who actually knows his stuff, so it will happen a HELLUVA lot faster. Eric designs all of Adamant’s other stuff, and he’s also the graphic designer for comics like LAZARUS, BLACK MAGICK, ATOMIC ROBO graphic novels, etc. (You can read more about his work here: https://www.erictrautmann.us ) Once layout is done, we go to press (and yes, I still have partners helping with that), and you get the full PDF, and then the book. It will go to backers first, of course, but I expect that the PDF will be released commercially before the holidays.

What can you tell us about the new system?
We’re calling it “D6 PLUS” – the base framework is the Open Content D6 system from West End, which we think are a rock-solid set of rules for fast, cinematic style play. To that framework, we’re adding additional elements (the “Plus” part), drawing from more modern, “story-game” styles of play (as an example, the Spirit & Aspects system from the first version of FAR WEST).

But I liked the system we had!
I’m glad to hear that – and if there’s enough interest, we might go ahead and eventually complete that version, as an alternate rules set. There is also potential for licensed versions using other rules systems as well, down the road, which some folks have already spoken with us about.

What about more info?
I’ve opened a thread on our forums for discussion with the backers about what they’re seeing in the manuscript chapters, and we’ve made that public, so you can get a sneak preview of what to expect. Come check it out!

I’m also available to answer any questions you have – the absolute best ways to contact me are via email at gms@adamantentertainment.com, via Twitter at @gmskarka or via Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/gmskarka . Those are the methods which I will reliably see, get notification, and be able to respond to the quickest.

As always, I remain forever thankful to you. Thank you for sticking around through my dark days, and believing in me. I can’t wait to show you what you’ve helped to create.

As we get closer to the release, we’re shaking the dust of this site, with the intention of getting back to regular content again. Today’s piece is about the new version of one of the most Far Western movies out there, The Magnificent Seven.

For the (surely) few of you who don’t already know, the original Magnificent Seven was a 1960 Western remake of the 1954 Akira Kurosawa film, The Seven Samurai — the tale of a group of Bad Men (gunslingers and outlaws in the Western, masterless ronin in the Samurai film) hired to protect a village from a large gang of bandits. The tale has been re-told in many forms: science fiction (Battle Beyond The Stars), children’s films (A Bug’s Life), and a bunch of kung-fu & wuxia films (Duel of the Seven Tigers, Seven Warriors, Seven Swords, etc.).

The combination of eastern and western is why we think of this as one of the most Far Western movies out there — and in fact, one of our early playtest games was literally a lift of this story, with a collection of Dust Road Wanderers gathered to protect a town from a bandit army.

Now, the film has been remade, for release this Fall, and the first trailer is out. The new version features Denzel Washington in the Yul Brynner role, and the rest of his Seven include Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Martin Sensmeier, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Byung-hun Lee. Garcia-Rulfo is playing a Native American, and he and Lee (from the equally Far Western movie, The Good, The Bad & The Weird)add a much more diverse look to the cast than the original. The Eli Wallach bandit chief role is played by Peter Sarsgaard.

As we’re finally getting closer to the release of the Far West Adventure Game Core Rulebook, we figured that it was time to show you some of the stuff that has only been shown to our Kickstarter Backers so far.

Today, we’re giving you your first look at the front and back cover of the game! The backers offered their opinions on a number of different options, and these are the final designs that resulted.

It’s been far too long since the last post on this site, but now, as we’re finally getting ready for the release of the FAR WEST Adventure Game, we’re returning to regular content on the website. First up, a nifty bit of Inspirography!

Check out this trailer for THE ARTI: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS — a CG plus Puppets wuxia fantasy that was released for the Lunar New Year in Taiwan. Some nice FAR WEST inspirography here — it even has a Drudge!

As a friend said on Facebook: “It’s Wuxia Meets The Thunderbirds!”

It’s apparently already available on DVD/BluRay in Taiwan… here’s the description from the YesAsia webstore:

“Puppetry has a long and distinguished history in Chinese entertainment. Popularized amongst modern audiences in 1970s Taiwan, puppetry remains one of the most popular forms of traditionally inspired entertainment on the island nation, maintaining a regular public presence in the form of highly rated TV shows on a dedicated puppetry channel. The leader of Taiwan’s puppetry industry is, undoubtedly, Pili. In the past few decades, Pili has established itself as a maverick, incorporating new technologies into the traditional art form. The production company continues this pioneering spirit in The Arti: The Adventure Begins, a big-budget silver screen adventure that sees puppetry and CGI merge in perfect harmony.

When their father is killed, Zhang Mo and his sister Zhang Tong, a swordswoman, escape from their village with ARTI-C, a robot their father created. The group begins a perilous journey across a vast desert in search of Loulan, an ancient city that the siblings believe to house ARTI-C’s power source. As the three draw closer and closer to their destination, they remain unaware that each step takes them further into a looming war…”

Sounds very cool — If any of you have seen it, let us know what you thought!

]]>http://intothefarwest.com/2015/08/11/far-west-inspirography-the-arti/feed/0The Far West Character Sheethttp://intothefarwest.com/2013/11/21/the-far-west-character-sheet/
http://intothefarwest.com/2013/11/21/the-far-west-character-sheet/#commentsThu, 21 Nov 2013 23:28:46 +0000http://intothefarwest.com/?p=875Getting ready to send the Far West Adventure Game to the printer (and to the Kickstarter backers!) in the next few days. It’s been taking me longer than I’d hoped for, due to some sort of virulent plague hitting the Skarka household. Still plugging away, though!

We’re asking the backers for their opinion on which character sheet to include in the book — both options will be available for download from the website, but only one will appear in the printed book itself. We’ll also be offering alternate character sheets (including some designed by Far West Society members) for download as well!

The two basic options are visible below.Click on the image below to download a copy of the character sheet in PDF. If you’re not a kickstarter backer, feel free to post comments or come to the forum for discussion!

]]>http://intothefarwest.com/2013/11/21/the-far-west-character-sheet/feed/1August Art Previewhttp://intothefarwest.com/2013/08/12/august-art-preview/
http://intothefarwest.com/2013/08/12/august-art-preview/#respondMon, 12 Aug 2013 18:28:21 +0000http://intothefarwest.com/?p=851Getting ready for our annual trip to the biggest tabletop games show in the US, GenCon. As discussed over in our forum, we’ll be having an informal meet-and-greet on Saturday evening, 7:00pm in the lobby of the Omni Severin, 40 West Jackson Place. If you’re planning on dropping by, head over to the forum and sound off!

In the meantime, I thought that I’d give you a look at some of the latest art that will be appearing in the core rulebook — backer portraits as well as standard illustrations:

The Bride’s Tale

Being tied up by a lady was not something Adebar Jade disagreed with on principle. However, he preferred silk ribbons and a pleasant environment. Rough ropes that tied his wrists to one of the wheels of his own caravan in the blistering heat of the desert was something else entirely. To make things worse, his head felt like it was twice the normal size and filled with angry hornets.

The only shadow that was afforded to him was cast by Wind’s Bride, who looked down on him, her silhouette against the sun seeming awfully tall for a young girl — and far more menacing.

At least she had watered his horses.

“Why are you following me?” Her voice was flat and quiet. No telling what she felt or thought.

Adebar swallowed a lewd remark about a secret admirer. She didn’t strike him as the funny type. More like the type to leave him here for the vultures.

“I don’t understand what you are doing. Why you are doing it. That’s why I follow you.” The truth seemed his best option.

“Stupid reason to die.”

That was a phrase Adebar did not want to hear. “You want to kill me just like that? With my hands tied? All the other buffoons had a fair chance.”

The business end of a sixshooter touched his still moving lips. It was an old weapon, nothing spectacular or fancy like a Waoping, just a black old gun that smelled of hot metal, gunpowder and oil. From Adebar’s perspective it looked as big as an army cannon.

“Nervous, Jade man?” There was tiny hint of amusement in her voice now — The humor of the cat batting at a mouse. “You’ve seen some of my work and you think you know me? Remember what I said to you on the bridge? I have more faith in the dead than in the living.”

“Have faith that I mean you no harm,” he said. “I made no attempt to hide myself, no?” Actually, he had made an effort to hide himself, for all the good it had done him.

“That only proves you are not very clever, Jade man. I thought I’d see what the Dog Beating Stick of your clan is all about, but you are not up to it.”

“You are sure? Untie my hands and try.”

Her mouth twisted into a young girl’s frown. “I already did try. Now you are here tied to a wheel, chewing on my gun and feeling like you’ve been kicked by a horse. You didn’t even know what hit you. Your Dog Beating Stick isn’t much.”

“You are insulting my clan,” Adebar sputtered.

“No, I’m just saying you were a lousy student.”

Adebar sneered but it was not like he could disagree. She had caught him with his pants down, and honestly, he’d never really excelled at the Jade Family’s kung fu. For now he’d keep talking. That was what he did best — and her insults sounded much better than a gun going off in his face.

“How is it possible? You possess kung fu that only a master of the Dust Road four times your age should have,” he asked.

“I had a very stringent teacher. And I’m dedicated.”

The gun disappeared. Wind’s Bride found a smooth rock in the shadows of the canyon wall and settled on it. With a slight breeze touching her hair she looked comfortable; like she could sit there for days and watch someone else roast in the sun.

“You’re really dying to know, aren’t you?”

“Bad choice of words,” Adebar mumbled.

“You know, I really like you, Jade man. You try to preach and teach because you genuinely like people –even if they are scum. Stupid, but admirable. Since you went to such great lengths to get to know me, you shall have my story.”

So she really liked him. Adebar decided not to ask how she treated people she disliked. He’d seen that already.

“My father was a Master. Favorite of his teacher,” Wind’s Bride began her tale. “But they had a disagreement. They fought and my father left the school. He married a woman who was the daughter of the Master of another school. My education began the moment I could walk. My father said I would fulfill our family’s destiny –that I had been born with the spirit for it. He was right. I never wanted anything else.”

Family, at least, was something Adebar Jade could understand.

She continued: “From father I learned the Ascending Eagle Claw and the Ten-Armed Blade while my mother taught me Eight Directions. Every day I did nothing but practice, eat, sleep and practice again. By the age of ten I had surpassed all of my father’s other students, even those that were much older. Finally father gave me the chance to fight for real. First he brought home criminals: muggers, bruisers, loudmouths who fancied themselves good with a gun. He said they had to fight and kill me or die at his hands. They thought it a joke. Some were still laughing when I killed them.”

Adebar nearly choked on what he heard. Killing at such a young age…

“Soon my opponents became more dangerous. They were real fighters now, some of them beginning to make a name for themselves on the Dust Road,” she said. “Then, on my thirteenth birthday, my parents took me to a cave outside the town where we lived. They had a saddled horse waiting there for me, provisions and a little money. They said I was ready now to travel the Dust Road alone and make them proud. First however, they wanted me to do two things: make a promise and pass a final test. The promise was to prove myself superior to my father’a former Master and all his students by seeking them out and killing them in a fair fight.”

Wind’s Bride looked at him quizzically, “Of course not. These were not Dust Roaders, just hooligans and parasites. They were for practice. The hinge that constantly moves never rusts.”

Despite the blistering heat, Adebar felt like he was encased in a block of ice.

The girl that found killing so perfectly normal slid off her rock and walked back to him. “Now you have my tale, Jade man. Does it make you feel any better?”

A small thought in the back of Adebar’s mind whispered that the tale was unfinished — she had told him of her promise, but had not told him of the test. All he could see now, though, was his own death staring him in the face, and he felt no hope in asking for more information.

Bright metal flashed in the sun, and Adebar heard the whistle of sharp steel. He cried out.

His arms slumped to the ground, momentarily without feeling, but still attached to the shoulders — she had cut his bonds.

“I don’t want to kill you just like that, Jade man,” she said her long sword disappearing back under her poncho.

Adebar exhaled deeply. The needles and pins in his arms told him that the blood was flowing again properly. Slowly, he got to his feet and rubbed more feeling back into his wrists and hands.

“Thank you — and as I said, dear lady, I mean you no harm. I promise not to bother you again.” No, he’d stay the hell away from this crazy witch, and spread the word to steer clear of her to every cousin of the Jade Family.

Wind’s Bride nodded. “I know you will not.”

****

Later that day, the girl they called Wind’s Bride rode away with five spare horses in tow. Three taken from bandits… and two taken from a fool who had trusted too much in the living.

She did not look back to burning caravan in the canyon that served as his pyre.

He should not have followed a girl who, as a final test of skill and dedication, had dueled her own parents to the death.

THE END.

This vignette was crafted by a FAR WEST fan, and serves as a preview of the fan participation in the FAR WEST setting that is available to members of the Far West Society.

About The Author

A resident of Germany, Marco Mueller has been playing tabletop RPGs since the mid-eighties and writing in several PBEMs–most notably Star Trek and Vampire.The Masquerade–since the late nineties. This is his first official contribution to a published setting.

For the first time since the tale of Merit two years ago, we’re presenting a multi-part vignette. Click here for Part One of the story of Wind’s Bride, written by FAR WEST afficianado Marco Mueller, and join us tomorrow for the conclusion:

On The Trail

Her work was neat as ever. You had to give her that.

She hadn’t used a gun this time. Instead she had killed the three bandits with their own swords: clean cut across the throat, from one ear to another.

Three men –perhaps kicked out from a bandit army –had harassed the town of Little Sparrow for months, selling protection to the shop owners (but never giving any) and generally taking what they wanted.

Their ill-gotten valuables and horses were now gone along with their breath, including whatever bits and half-bits they had liberated from the shop owners in Little Sparrow during their last visit. The girl had a sense or practicability. Why haggle over a hero’s salary with town merchants if you could just as well take it where you find it?

Neat. And frightening.

After their encounter in Birds Bridge, the girl had become somewhat of a obsession for Adebar Jade. He followed her trail knowing full well that he invited disaster.

Wind’s Bride.

That was what cousin Seventy-Two-Faces Jade had nicknamed her.

Winds Bride, because the winds were where she cast the souls of those who tried to harm her. She never provoked a fight — but she never avoided one — and when the dust cleared, the girl walked away while someone else did not. She took no prisoners and she never needed a second bullet.

A year ago, Seventy-Two-Faces had met her on a train to Sedoa. She had walked up to a gambler and told him plainly that he was cheating. The Steel Dragons were unhappy about the mess that ensued, but Winds Bride had been right. The gambler had been a cheat — a very dead cheat, by the time the Dragons stopped the train in the middle of nowhere to let her off.

The well-informed Jade Family had no clue who she was, who had taught her, and why nobody ever got a second chance with her — and so Seventy-Two-Faces’ tale had spread, and the name — all they had — had stuck. The reputation of Wind’s Bride began to spread. She became known as a traveling gun, faster than the lightning of the gods, as unfailing as fate itself, and just as final.

Soon, two types of people became interested in her. First, the ones who thought they could draw faster and shoot straighter. Second, those who wanted to solve a problem with a clean shot.

There was never a shortage of either.

Wind’s Bride did not show much interest in her reputation. She never made a big show out of her killings, or bragged about them. She didn’t even leave a name for a witnesses. It was almost as if her daily routine was written: wake up in the morning, eat at noon, kill a man, and go to bed. It took a clan of professional information peddlers to connect the line of bloody red dots.

Three nagging questions and no answers made Adebar Jade follow her wherever she went:

Why? Why did she do what she did?

How? How did she become like this?

What? What would she become in two, five or ten years?

At times, Adebar thought that he really did not want an answer to that last question.

Maybe it was the heat and monotone rumbling of the wheels that lulled Adebar into half-sleep. Maybe he was too deeply entrenched in his gloomy thoughts about a beast in the making.

Anyway, he never saw her coming.

She jumped off a rocky canyon wall to his left from thirty feet above. Her Flying Shadowless Kick whipped him off of his seat on the caravan, and his world went black before he even hit the ground.

This vignette was crafted by a FAR WEST fan, and serves as a preview of the fan participation in the FAR WEST setting that is available to members of the Far West Society.

About The Author

A resident of Germany, Marco Mueller has been playing tabletop RPGs since the mid-eighties and writing in several PBEMs–most notably Star Trek and Vampire.The Masquerade–since the late nineties. This is his first official contribution to a published setting.

For the first time since the tale of Merit two years ago, we’re presenting a multi-part vignette. Join us over the next three days for the story of Wind’s Bride, written by FAR WEST afficianado Marco Mueller:

Prodigy

Everything about him had seen better days.

Once upon a time, his bowtop showman’s caravan had been garishly painted in all the colors of the rainbow. Now the colors had faded, bleached out by the desert sun, rubbed off by the hot dust that the winds carried along, or even washed away by the occasional rainfall.

Once upon a time, the man had been handsome.

Now the girth around his waist, the suspicious red and blue color of his nose, and the breadcrumbs in his twirled moustache and braided goatee made him look less appealing.

Even his clothes were an amalgamation of once upon a time and past glories. He wore the top hat of an Imperial gentleman that had gone from shiny lacquered black to fading grey, the strings of beads and talismans wrapped around it now adding a sense a cheapness, rather than class. His shirt and leather vest had been stitched and repaired so many times that it was more the blessings of various gods than craftsmanship that still held them together. The boots and pants had seen service in the Imperial army even before the Peerless Seven had made their stand against the Throne.

Yes, Doctor Adebar Jade looked like a wash-out, a has-been (assuming he had once been someone to begin with).

Today the has-been had the feeling that he’d watched a legend about to begin. Either that, or a tragedy in progress.

She was a slip of a girl, fifteen or sixteen years at most, thin as wire and just a touch over five feet in height. She wore no shoes, only the baggy pants and cotton shirt of much taller man — the same man whom her floppy broad-brimmed felt hat belonged to. The six-shooter at her waist seemed comically huge, way too big for such a small girl to carry around, let a alone draw — even if she used both hands.

That’s what a pair of bushwhackers drunk on cactus wine and mischief had thought too. They had bragged about taking the girls gun first and her innocence second.

Now both were very quiet. Now both had fine little holes in their foreheads, turning blue and black around the edges while bright red blood pooled under their heads, a stark contrast to the yellowed sands that surrounded them.

Few people in Birds Bridge would shed a tear about these two jokers. They had been a pain in everyone’s necks: harassing shopkeepers, chasing skirts, beating up husbands. However, being bully-boys more than killers, and mischievous more than truly evil, they had never crossed the line to take a life.

They had been young, too: just a few years older than the little girl with the big gun. A healthy lesson or two could have turned them around for good. That had been Adebar’s plan: step in to protect the girl and teach a lesson.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to educate someone when his brains are blown out of the back of his head.

The crowd before Tao’s stable parted wide as the girl calmly walked out with her pinto horse following behind. She seemed to have forgotten the whole incident. Neither the two dead men concerned her, nor the possibility of legal retribution.

An adolescent legend. Or maybe an adolescent nightmare.

***

He caught up with her on the small bridge that had given the town of Birds Bridge its name. She did not acknowledge the caravan, or the man driving it, until Adebar spoke to her.

“Why?” he asked.

“You were there. You know.” She had the clear silver voice of a singer, but devoid of all emotion.

Adebar Jade sighed. “You killed them with such speed and skill. No doubt you could have ended it just by disarming or wounding them.”

“Yes. And tomorrow they would have found someone else. Someone without a gun.”

“Or they might have learned,” Jade suggested.

“Or they might have gotten worse,” came the reply.

“You do not take chances?”

“I have more faith in the dead than in the living,” the girl responded.

They had crossed the bridge. The girl dug her heels into the sides of her pinto and the horse galloped off. Soon she was only a dust cloud approaching the horizon. She had outrun Adebar.

This vignette was crafted by a FAR WEST fan, and serves as a preview of the fan participation in the FAR WEST setting that is available to members of the Far West Society.

About The Author

A resident of Germany, Marco Mueller has been playing tabletop RPGs since the mid-eighties and writing in several PBEMs–most notably Star Trek and Vampire.The Masquerade–since the late nineties. This is his first official contribution to a published setting.

Fans of FAR WEST looking for inspiration have a relatively easy time finding Spaghetti Western sources — many of them are readily available, and, in fact, the rushed nature of their production has meant that many are now in the public domain, which has led to many collections featuring dozens of films squeezed onto no-frills DVDs. Not the best quality, and you’ll see the same films repeated across many collections, but they’re cheap and easily available.

For wuxia inspiration, the choices (at least in the western world) are far more limited, as only a fraction of the available material is packaged for release outside of Asia. Some of the larger films get released here (mostly direct-to-video, fewer in theatres), and only a handful of the myriad wuxia novels have been translated into English. One popular source of wuxia entertainment that is almost entirely absent in the west are the many wuxia TV series produced for Chinese television.

Most are adapted from wuxia serial novels, and play out a bit like soap operas with kung fu — filmed on video, with low-budget CG effects. Very few have been released on DVD, and almost nothing more recent than 5 years old, despite the fact that Chinese TV still pumps them out in a constant stream.

Well, I’m pleased to say that I’ve discovered a goldmine. There is a website devoted to these series, called WuxiaEdge.com, run by a Chinese-Australian woman living in the US. The site itself is a font of up-to-date news, forum discussions and more… but even better: The site has its own Youtube channel, which features complete, fan-subbed episodes of recent Chinese TV wuxia series.

***EDITED 1/27/15: Sadly, the Youtube channel was deleted. However, you can still find out about wuxia TV shows from the website, and a simple Youtube search will find MANY sources for viewing!***

As a sample, here’s an embed of the first episode of 怪侠一枝梅 (Guai Xia Yi Zhi Mei, “Strange Hero Yi Zhi Mei”), a series about a Robin-Hood-esque masked bandit in Ming Dynasty China:

Keep an eye on WuxiaEdge.com, and you’ll hear of other fan-subbed series available for online streaming.

The only problem is: We’re too busy getting the FAR WEST Adventure Game ready for delivery that we have no time to watch, so you’ll have to watch for us!